PHP date() alternitive

[espfutbol98]

I have been working on a site in a different language and because of that, I have to work my way around the date() function. I found this script in php.net but when I run it, it returns all of the numbers but not the words. They appear as a dimond with a question mark in it. I have already made sure everything on the page is UFT-8 and it still is giving me problems. Are some of the functions outdated or what?

<?php
/*
  these are the russian additional format characters
  д: full textual representation of the day of the week
  Д: full textual representation of the day of the week (first character is uppercase),
  к: short textual representation of the day of the week,
  К: short textual representation of the day of the week (first character is uppercase),
  м: full textual representation of a month
  М: full textual representation of a month (first character is uppercase),
  л: short textual representation of a month
  Л: short textual representation of a month (first character is uppercase),
*/
function date_ru($formatum, $timestamp=0) {
  if (($timestamp <= -1) || !is_numeric($timestamp)) return '';
  $q['д'] = array(-1 => 'w', 'воскресенье','понедельник', 'вторник', 'среда', 'четверг', 'пятница', 'суббота');
  $q['Д'] = array(-1 => 'w', 'Воскресенье','Понедельник', 'Вторник', 'Среда', 'Четверг', 'Пятница', 'Суббота');
  $q['к'] = array(-1 => 'w', 'вс','пн', 'вт', 'ср', 'чт', 'пт', 'сб');
  $q['К'] = array(-1 => 'w',  'Вс','Пн', 'Вт', 'Ср', 'Чт', 'Пт', 'Сб');
  $q['м'] = array(-1 => 'n', '', 'января', 'февраля', 'марта', 'апреля', 'мая', 'июня', 'июля', 'августа', 'сентября', 'октября', 'ноября', 'декабря');
  $q['М'] = array(-1 => 'n', '', 'Января', 'Февраля', 'Март', 'Апреля', 'Май', 'Июня', 'Июля', 'Август', 'Сентября', 'Октября', 'Ноября', 'Декабря');
  $q['л'] = array(-1 => 'n', '', 'янв', 'фев', 'мар', 'апр', 'май', 'июн', 'июл', 'авг', 'сен', 'окт', 'ноя', 'дек');
  $q['Л'] = array(-1 => 'n', '',  'Янв', 'Фев', 'Мар', 'Апр', 'Май', 'Июн', 'Июл', 'Авг', 'Сен', 'Окт', 'Ноя', 'Дек');

  if ($timestamp == 0)
    $timestamp = time();
  $temp = '';
  $i = 0;
  while ( (strpos($formatum, 'д', $i) !== FALSE) || (strpos($formatum, 'Д', $i) !== FALSE) || 
          (strpos($formatum, 'к', $i) !== FALSE) || (strpos($formatum, 'К', $i) !== FALSE) || 
          (strpos($formatum, 'м', $i) !== FALSE) || (strpos($formatum, 'М', $i) !== FALSE) || 
          (strpos($formatum, 'л', $i) !== FALSE) || (strpos($formatum, 'Л', $i) !== FALSE)) {
    $ch['д']=strpos($formatum, 'д', $i);
    $ch['Д']=strpos($formatum, 'Д', $i);
    $ch['к']=strpos($formatum, 'к', $i);
    $ch['К']=strpos($formatum, 'К', $i);
    $ch['м']=strpos($formatum, 'м', $i);
    $ch['М']=strpos($formatum, 'М', $i);
    $ch['л']=strpos($formatum, 'л', $i);
    $ch['Л']=strpos($formatum, 'Л', $i);
    foreach ($ch as $k=>$v)
      if ($v === FALSE)
        unset($ch[$k]);
    $a = min($ch);
    $temp .= date(substr($formatum, $i, $a-$i), $timestamp) . $q[$formatum[$a]][date($q[$formatum[$a]][-1], $timestamp)];
    $i = $a+1;
  }
  $temp .= date(substr($formatum, $i), $timestamp);
  return $temp;
}

echo 'Сегодня '.date_ru('Д, d л Y');
?>

[xav0989]

There is an incompability in the charset used in the php file, the one parsed and the one displayed by the browser. Try adding a htmlentities in your echo function:

echo htmlentities('Сегодня '.date_ru('Д, d л Y')); 

However, use the utf8_encode function if the results are not sent to a browser.

[espfutbol98]

//I tried:
echo  htmlentities('Сегодня '.date_ru('Д, d л Y'));
//and
echo utf8_encode(htmlentities('Сегодня '.date_ru('Д, d л Y')));
//but i still got random characters. the code you see above is
//the only thing I have in the file so charsets can't really be 
//getting confused 

[xav0989]

check the charset in which the file is saved and the charset that the server is receiving. Try setting it to ISO-8859-1.

[espfutbol98]

In ISO-8859-1, the code returns: СегоднÑ� ”, 04. » 2009
In UTF-8, it returns Сегодня �, 04. � 2009 (When both the browser and file are in UTF-

Are you guys sure it is a charset problem? I think it might be something wrong with the code. Could any of it have an error or be outdated?

[garrettroyce]

I'm pretty sure it's an encoding error. It looks like the UTF-8 is pretty close, there's probably use some minor tweak you have to do yet.

UTF-8 is supposed to be able to encode any character in any language.

[descalzo]

PHP does not handle Unicode well.

For example:

$test = 'Д, d л Y' ;

echo strlen( $test ) ; 

Yields 20.

I was going to suggest adding

declare(encoding="utf-8"); 

at the top of the script, but that feature did not come in until PHP 5.3

[espfutbol98]

Thanks for the tip descalzo but I have PHP 5.2.9. I also tried putting the utf8_encode() in front of the arrays but it didn't change anything either.

[garrettroyce]

$test = 'Д, d л Y' ;

echo strlen( $test ) ; 

Yields 20.

This is theoretically correct since the characters used are multibyte characters and can take up to four bytes each, though logically it makes less sense.
Edit:
Have you tried using heredoc syntax?

http://www.php.net/manual/en/languag...syntax.heredoc

it will be inconvenient to change all the quotes, but it may be the solution

[descalzo]

This is theoretically correct since the characters used are multibyte characters and can take up to four bytes each, though logically it makes less sense.

And that is exactly why this code is broken.

$temp .= date(substr($formatum, $i, $a-$i), $timestamp) . 
     $q[$formatum[$a]][date($q[$formatum[$a]][-1], $timestamp)]; 

Specifically (there may be other places, this is one I found), where he uses

 
$formatum[$a] 

He is expecting this to be a multibyte character, so he can use it as a key to the $q hash.
But PHP only gives him one byte.